Why I Shut Down Port Harcourt Refinery Operations Immediately After Assuming Office – NNPCL Boss Ojulari

The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Bayo Ojulari, has explained why he ordered the immediate shutdown of the Port Harcourt Refinery shortly after assuming office on April 2.

Ojulari revealed that the refinery was draining the country’s resources, with losses ranging between \$300 million and \$500 million every month during its brief operations. He disclosed this yesterday during a meeting with the leadership of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) in Abuja.

“When I resumed, one of my first priorities was to look into the refinery. I quickly reviewed its performance and discovered we were losing between \$300 million and \$500 million monthly. We pumped about 50,000 barrels of crude daily into the refinery, but what came out was less than 40 percent of the input. It was unsustainable,” he said.

The Port Harcourt Refinery, which was reopened in November 2024 by former GCEO Mele Kyari to public acclaim, was halted in May this year, barely a month into Ojulari’s tenure. He explained that suspending its operations was necessary to stop the financial hemorrhage and to restructure the facility for sustainable profitability.

Ojulari stressed that NNPCL had already completed both technical and commercial reviews of the country’s three refineries and concluded that a new business model was essential. He said the company would adopt a public-private partnership approach similar to the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) model, which PENGASSAN had also recommended.

“The solution is to bring in a professional refinery company to partner with us. We’ve been meeting with potential partners, because it is no longer in Nigeria’s interest to continue pumping money into facilities we cannot fully operationalise. The refinery must not only work technically, it must also be commercially viable,” he stated.

He likened the challenge of reviving the facilities to fixing an old, neglected car, where solving one problem only exposes another. Years of poor maintenance, he noted, had made it difficult for the refineries to deliver results despite the billions already spent on rehabilitation.

Ojulari appealed for patience from Nigerians, contractors and stakeholders, assuring that once the refineries are repositioned under a sustainable framework, jobs will be restored and value created. He insisted that his actions were free from political pressure, noting that President Bola Tinubu’s directive was for the refineries to operate sustainably, not at a loss.

The NNPCL chief also spoke of threats to his life and pressure from vested interests opposed to reforms, but maintained that he would remain focused on delivering results. “We will not bow to short-term pressure. Change comes at a price, but the transformation will benefit Nigerians in the long run,” he said.

In his remarks, PENGASSAN President and TUC leader Festus Osifo praised Ojulari’s leadership, noting improvements in pipeline performance and production since his appointment. He assured the union’s full support for the reforms and expressed optimism that crude oil production could rise from the current 1.8 million barrels per day to 2.6 million next year if stability is maintained.

Ojulari’s position stands in sharp contrast to that of his predecessor, Mele Kyari, who celebrated the refinery’s reopening last year as a historic step toward energy independence. Less than a year later, the facility has been shut once more, with Ojulari insisting that only structural reforms and private partnerships will secure the future of Nigeria’s refining sector.